[Neil Hurwitz]

This type of thread pops up every now and again and
Even though I am completely out of the biz I still like to keep up.
I had the first AVID MC 8000 in NYC installed by BZ 1992
And was in biz for 13 years before that. So here is my two cents.
This industry has gone from a Money Maker to just Plain Sh-t.
There are those who whine and say what about the “ART”
Well guys I hate to bust your bubble but it doesn’t matter.
NOBODY ever said, I got to watch this show or see this film because
of the editor or colorist. You can be replaced instantly.
Moreover, lots of the lines of value added services, are being leached out by technology.
No more money from time code burn-ins, dubs,
film to tape, standards conversion, and hourly charges for gear.
All you got to sell now is TIME
and it’s relatively cheap time to boot.
We used to have these discussions on the Old Avid-L and I always said
And still say today that without markup on equipment and without a high economic barrier to entry, running edit bays is like driving a TAXI, and will pay the same wages.
We used to add in a CHRYON MAXINE and bill an additional 125.00 per hour to an edit session. Dual Twin Deveous 350 per hour.
The Sushi Flowed and Dry Cleaning was picked up.
We billed 6 to 7 grand for a 8 hour studio session ona regular basis.
There simply isn’t the same money making opportunity anymore.

No sour grapes here, I’m glad I spent 32 years
in the biz and now it’s time for a younger generation to come in.
I just don’t see them having the same money making
potential that existed 32 years ago.
Not to mention that we had some really really cool toys to play with
Flying around a Warren Smith Animation stand was fun
Playing with the ADO Joystick was fun
Watching 4 VPR3’s spin up and zip along was fun
Watching 100 VHS machines automatically cycle thru a dub run was fun
A Big Switcher with lots of Keyers and ME’s was fun
Just getting all the stuff to work was fun.

Sitting in a dark room looking at a computer monitor all day
Is Not Any Fun At All.

I’m willing to bet that Full Sail down in Fla. is the most profitable company In the biz, not because they make great shows
but because they con young kids into paying ridiculous tuition for training in a career that has way more aspirants then slots. For me it was all telling when a regular poster on the COW announced
That he was forming an “Education Division” with their own Educational Programming.
Rake those suckers in.

[Neil Hurwitz]

Grandpa Bob is correct
No TBC No Joy
I beleive DPS had a unit that did just this
Un TBC’d analog composite to TBC’d SDI
Hunt around on ebay and you should be able to buy one for under
200.00 If not call MCCOM they got a house full of old
analog gear just waiting for a situation like yours.
From
Another Old GrandPa
who used to torture Bob with 5800’s and Quadra 950’s

[Neil Hurwitz]

Herb,
I am truly glad to be out of this biz.
It was my life for Twenty Five years and you know what
I made more money from 1980 to 2000 with old school,
really old school stuff than anybody can make today.
I didn’t care about awards (although my shop and guys won a boatload)
I was in it to MAKE MONEY. Nobody cares about the commercials or
shows we did a few years ago.
So you’re correct, I quess if a 250.00 buck difference a month
means a whole lot, then margins must be NON-EXISTANT
If you bill 125 hours a month (part time work in my book)and working
with NEW, BETTER,FASTER tools, which will allow you to
complete tasks quicker adds 2 bucks an hour to your cost
and it’s a deal breaker, then the guy driving a black car limo
must be making more than you because he’s got to buy, maintain, gas and insure the vehicle.
It must be really hard to not have face to face interaction
with your clients and be locked up in an edit suite all day?
For me the people and characters that I encountered on a daily
basis and playing with all the new toys was what made
this business fun.
Like I said before, I am Truly Glad to be out of this biz
I ain’t NO DIGITAL SLAVE

[Neil Hurwitz]

Gentlemen,
Even though I have retired from the biz, I still follow along with the technology
So here’s my two cents:
Apple appears to be changing their tune here about exactly what a
Professional level machine is. IE: From a fully integrated box
To a “Core” that will be customized with ad-ons so that the buyer can
configure the system to exactly what they want. Remember that video
Is not the only use for this product, there is 3D modeling, Print,
Photograpy and More. If I were a designer at any of the add-on companies
I would be burning the night designing a round expansion chassis that holds
Lets say 5 full length cards vertically as well as 8 drives that has enough
Heft for the New Mac Pro to sit on top of.. Then all you need is a nose cone
And you got a nice looking contraption.( Paint it like a Saturn 5)
What’s it worth to you to Show off your stuff?
Clients don’t really know too much about what you
Got running in the boxes But they will know if you don’t have the new
Round One. This is Show Business. Make a show of it.
I also get a kick out of the whole discussion and speculation about
The cost of this new machine. My question is,
If you are working professionally, If you make decent margins,
What difference does it make?
I have done the math for you
If you go out and purchase a new Mac Pro and a Shopping cart
Full of accessories and spend a total of, lets say 12,000
Then you short term finance it for 24 months (longer would not be smart)
At 7.5%, Zero Residual value It would cost a Whopping 540 bucks a month.
So once again, What difference does it make?
You gotta sell the SIZZLE a Little.
All these new fantastic tools are just plain cheap to anybody that knows
What a Quadra 950 running MC8000 was.
There are those who will say that financing is stupid and dangerous
What happens if this or that happens?
Well gents there are simply no guarantees in whatever you do, so
To them I say Match expense with Revenue. If the machine is going to
Make you money over time, Pay for it over time.
To those who say I’ve got this much invested in this Raid or that Card
I say, Spending money on this level of equipment should not be considered an Investment
But an ongoing expense, It’s not like a CD from the bank.
You have to have the mindset that,
No matter what you buy after two years it’s gonna be Land-fill

[Neil Hurwitz]

“Revamp the Business Model”

In my opinion this is much easier said then done.
Further more, I see no real viable business model on the horizon.
Soon all of what we know of as “Post Production” will change dramatically.
There is no barrier to entry, Distance will become meaningless,
The schools (now there’s a profitable part of this biz) are pumping out way more graduates then there will ever be jobs for. I recently read of a new expression
In the NY Times about companies looking for employees that are
22x22x22, Which turns out to be recent grads that are 22 years old
willing to work 22 hours a day for 22,000.00 a year. Jingle Bells

Schemes like the one being put together by Companies like AFRAME
will eat everybody’s lunch. Some will say the bandwidth just isn’t there
I say
I got a 55” LED TV, No more 19” B&W Zenith
I got my communicator er: IPhone
I got some 9 gig drives that I bought for 5,000.00
I lost my Dial Up Modem and got a cable modem
I threw my 80,000.00 Media Composers in the dumpster
And you don’t need a Kscope to do nothing no more.

Just Wait and everything in your shop will be worthless, everything.
No matter what you buy it’s going to be worthless in a year or two.
The only thing left to sell is creativity and the ability to get something done on time.
So the question becomes,
How much can you sell that for?
Will it be enough to cover overhead and turn a profit?
Do your clients really value it?

So you say revamp the business model, I’m not buying
It’s just nice-speak for a Doo Doo business.
And I would do absolutely everything I could to prevent my children
from entering this industry.

Sad but true coming from the former owner of a post house and rental company
who made a good living for 30 years at it.

[Neil Hurwitz]

You Said
Are you suggesting that my business is under threat because ‘millions of new people’ [*notation please, sounds like an airy sweeping statement based upon your perceptions rather than fact] are starting to use FC10? Because that is how that comment came across. I may be wrong, but it sounds to me like you are privy to the shifting of the dynamic of professional filmmaking and I am not and because I insist on wanting tracks on my timeline and a project to be called a project some whippersnapper with a macbook pro and FC10 is going to steal away my clients.

Last time I checked, most major film and TV was done in post houses which will continue, for a rather long tired time dear Billiam,

You are wrong here, The whole industry is under threat from just what you say it isn’t. As far as I can tell the number of true
multi-service “Post Houses” is way down. I am willing to bet that
the average salary of the editing community has actually declined
in the past 20 years ( in actual dollars forgetting about inflation). I used to pay my excellent
CMX/Grass 200/Chyron/ADO/Abekas editors 85,000 a year in 1995
Plus Overtime, Plus Benifits, I’d like to know just how many
editors out there are making this type of money now.
I call your attention to any newspaper classified section circa 1980
(remember those) The hottest job was a “Wang Word Processor Operator”
Jump ahead to now and a 12 year old can’t get out of grade school
without knowing “Word”
As far as your comment on “Most Major Film and TV” your are perhaps
correct but please note that the number of both of these is on the decline. Scripted Drama on TV is being rapidly replaced by much cheaper Reality/Contest shows. Every 200 Million Blockbuster movie
equals 8 or 9 lesser films.

[Neil Hurwitz]

I have been using PayPal’s virtual terminal for a few years now
and have never had an issue. You don’t even have to swipe the card or even be in your office, Just somewhere with an internet connection.
All you need is the card info and name and address.
I chose them because you only need one account for
MC,Visa,Discover and Amex
I bit pricey though at 30.00 bucks a month plus the percentage fee
Fairly good reporting too.

[Neil Hurwitz]

Tim Said
“If you need to buy one camera, or set up one suite, or can hire Bob Zelin, then no, a reseller doesn’t add much.

But Roscor specialized in things like schools, churches and independent TV stations — multiple systems, often placed into facilities with no IT or other appropriately skilled staff. These customers want single sources for mics, monitors, edit systems, storage, cabling, so when something went wrong, they made one call, and it was taken care of. There, having a dealer is invaluable.”

I agree, But here is the rub: These same institutions you mention
PRICE CHECK everything on the internet, Just like you and I,
and then ask for the same discounted price. The result
is very little or no markup on equipment for the vendor.
No mark up means the organization can’t support itself.
So in a way Roscor is evolving: to a straight systems integrator/service company. I hope they make it.
Years ago I was doing loads of work for USA/SCI-FI and they used to send over blank D3 tape by the pallet I would then “Basic”
it for them at the rate of 60.00 per hour. That type of work
in which an overnight shift would generate 3,600.00
(5 machines x 8 60’s per shift) really helped support the shop
Now this didn’t happen every night but about once a week.
I used to pay the tape op whose day job was as a starving PA/PM
200.00 bucks. As these things get leached away I don’t see how
todays facilities can stay open and make enough money to keep
everyone happy.

[Neil Hurwitz]

Both Walter and Grin are correct here.
With the rise of the internet, and the collective
desire to buy cheap coupled with the rise of the
box stores (think B&H)
there simply is no sustainably business model for lots of
sales oriented houses. It’s not that they don’t want to change or evolve There simply is no place or space for them to go.
Most of the products we use today are
manufactured overseas and there is very little value added
by the reseller. If you need a Panasonic camera, that’s manufactured
overseas and is going to arrive at your place still boxed as it left
the factory, Just what value does any reseller add?
Most modern equipment with high density, dual sided, surface mount circuit boards can’t be fixed except at a very sophisticated remanufacturing plant. (Ever try to replace a chip resistor
with a soldering iron) Most sales oriented operations have Salespersons who have very little experience using the product, thus the rise of all the user forums as mentioned by Walter.
All this plus the fact that our stuff is just getting plain cheap
doesn’t bode well for VAR’S Just like Home Depot killed off
many lumber yards and hardware stores, It didn’t matter what there
“Business Models” were, their days where numbered.
So in short there will be box houses (I bet most here buy from them)
and very high end (think Alexa ) sales organizations but the vast middle is getting hollowed out and no amount of business model tinkering is going to be able to save them.

[Neil Hurwitz]

I am just curious here, but I do beleive that most “PRO”
users of Apple gear don’t use MacPro’s. I know a women
who does major print layouts, brochures,Advertisments and
send/give out material for the travel industry and
she uses a well kitted out Macbook Pro as do most of her
collegues. Some prefer the new 27″ Imac for their “office” machine
She has no need for anymore firepower to do ALL
her print work, Period, End of Story.
Lets not get to stuck up here and think that the “Video Editor”
is the only pro user of Apple computers. As someone who once paid
15,000 for 6 gigs of Avid storage I can see the whole desktop thing
going away and into the cloud. The only thing stopping this is
the current bandwidth buildout, BUT THAT WILL CHANGE
It just might crap out all GPS systems as we know them
Now, Pay Attention to High Speed Wireless Internet
Hey, remember the shoe phone on get smart.